Lynne Heitman - The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room

The guys who had grabbed me were some kind of flying SWAT team. Once they had pulled me up from the wet ground, I had seen Gendarmerie written across their backs. Someone had heard the shots in the hotel and called the police. They’d spotted me running away, and they’d caught me with Frank’s gun in my pocket. I didn’t know much French, but I knew that was going to be a big problem.

At the station house, I had asked a lot of questions, but my jailers kept telling me they had to find a translator before anyone could speak to me, which was bullshit. It wasn’t as if I were a code talker.

I sat on the cot in my cell, isolated and waiting and trying to remember to breathe through my mouth. This jail had something in common with the other two I’d visited. It was my guess that jails all over the world had the same thing in common: the pungent smell of mold, greasy skin, body odor, and every variety of human discharge.

After several hours, an officer came and opened my cage. He took me through a series of gates and doors and elevators until we arrived at an open office area, not unlike the bullpens I’ve seen in the many different police departments I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. He handcuffed me to a chair next to an empty desk and told me to wait. That’s what he said. One word in English: “Wait.”

There was a lot of shouting going on behind the closed door of an office along one of the walls. It was muffled French that I couldn’t understand. What was easy to understand was the level of vitriol. When the arguing stopped, the door opened, and a man in a black raincoat came out. Right behind him was another man, somewhat younger, in shirtsleeves and tie. They stood in the bullpen speaking loudly and gesturing. When it was all over, the man in the black raincoat stalked out. The shirtsleeved man yelled at a uniform, pointed in my general direction, then retreated to his office and slammed the door. The officer came over and uncuffed me, then guided me through the procedure for release, talking to me the whole time in perfect English. He answered no questions about why I’d been released. I asked what would happen if I demanded an explanation. He advised against it.

On the way out, they returned my personal belongings. I went out to catch a cab, thinking how nice it would be to take it straight to Orly. I could still catch the evening flight to Boston if I hurried. But I had to go back to the Hyatt and get my things.

As it turned out, I didn’t need a cab. The man in the black raincoat was sitting in a car at the curb. He leaned over and popped open the passenger-side door.

“Get in.”

There was enough room between the car and the curb for me to step down. With one hand on the open door and one on the roof, I poked my head in so I could see his face. “Who are you?”

“Cyrus Thorne.”

Nothing screamed success like a private jet. Blackthorne’s looked rich without being ostentatious. The seats were big club chairs covered in glove-soft caramel-colored leather. There was carpet, subdued lighting, tables with polished wood-grain surfaces, and individual flip-up television monitors at every seat.

Thorne had taken a right turn into the cockpit after we’d boarded. I was trying to figure out which seat to flop into when a flight attendant approached and asked if I wanted anything.

“Water, please.”

I took a big swiveling chair that gave me a good view out one of the porthole windows. Apparently, we were the only passengers expected, because the stairs were up, the door was closed, and we were starting to taxi.

The flight attendant was back with a tall glass of ice, lime, and a bottle of San Pellegrino. She set the glass in front of me and poured. “I’m Tatiana. I’ll get you whatever you need.”

“Thank you.”

The pilot came on and asked everyone to strap in for takeoff. I looked out and saw we were at the end of the runway, about to blast off. He said our flying time to Boston’s Logan Airport would be approximately eight hours. At least I was going home.

I drank deeply from the glass, not realizing until I had consumed almost the whole thing how thirsty I had been and not caring much that gulping sparkling water would give me hiccups. I drained the glass, and Tatiana came over to pour the rest of the bottle. That’s when I looked at her closely for the first time and recognized her.

“I know you,” I said. “I saw you. You were at…you were…” She was the woman in the light raincoat from the ballroom and the sidewalk just before the cops had taken me down. “Who are you?”

“Cyrus will explain everything when he comes back.”

“Where is he?”

“Flying the plane.”

Of course. He not only owned the plane, he flew it. I watched Tatiana move around the cabin. She looked strong and toned, and something told me she was more than a flight attendant. A ninja flight attendant, perhaps, the kind of person we could have used more of back in my Majestic days.

“Put your seat belt on,” she said. She could have used a little brushing up on her customer-service skills.

As I buckled in, she threw a lever on the side of my chair and locked it so it wouldn’t swivel, which I assumed was required to keep the passengers from spinning like tops on liftoff. Then she strapped into the seat behind me.

The aircraft started to roll. I felt the g-forces climbing. The wheels left the ground, and we were flying. After about ten minutes, we were level and cruising. I heard Tatiana unhook herself. I needed a couple of moments alone to think, so I did what I always did when the seat-belt sign went off.

“Is the lav forward or aft?”

“It’s in the back.”

To get to it, I had to go through an office area and a small stateroom. The office had a TV, an exercise bike, a lot of stereo equipment, and a lit trophy case of some kind.

The bathroom was small but more than serviceable. I checked the mirror. Running for my life had generated a lot of sweat, which hadn’t been kind to the cut on my forehead. It was throbbing and ugly, but it hadn’t split open. I was going to have a nice scab for a while. I washed it and the rest of my face. The towels on the rack were all top quality. Each one had a small BT embroidered in the corner, and I had the absurd urge to steal one for Max Kraft, though it wasn’t likely I’d ever see him again. I hoped he was safely on his way to wherever he went to hide.

My bag from the hotel had materialized on the bed in the stateroom. My backpack was there, as was my computer case. These people might have been dangerous, but they were organized. I went straight to my backpack to check for the flash drive and felt more relieved than I would have expected to find it right where I’d left it. I’d worked hard to get it. I pulled it out and stuck it in the pocket of my jeans. I pulled out a sweatshirt, the only clean top I had left. My jeans weren’t exactly fresh, but my only other option was the pair of linen pants I had worn to the reunion.

While I pulled on the shirt, I tried to figure out what had just happened. I hadn’t been taken by force, but I hadn’t been given much choice, either. Thorne told me the gendarmes had picked me up in connection with the incident at the Novotel and that they considered me armed and dangerous. He had also told me he had gotten me out by claiming I was working for the CIA and taking me into his custody. Throughout this sequence of events, I had learned a few things: Cyrus Thorne had some kind of status with the Paris police, and possibly the CIA; he would have been happy to send me back to the gendarmerie, had I not agreed to go with him; and he wanted something from me. Knowing all that, my best option was to find out what it was and enjoy the ride home.

I started toward the main cabin, stopping on my way to notice some things I hadn’t seen the first time through. The display case was not for trophies. It was to display a single item: a large crystal sculpture of a screaming eagle. The sculpture itself was beautiful, but with its claws forward and wings fully extended, so was the bird, in a brutal sort of way. It was a pure specimen from a perfect world where the strong eat the weak and there is no other law but that. It reminded me of Drazen. I reached out and touched one of the claws.